


Highway Lessons

by melannen



Category: Wise Child Series - Monica Furlong
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2007, recipient:Dragonfly, runaways - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-24
Updated: 2007-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-12 08:39:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melannen/pseuds/melannen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Later I was to learn that nobody ever saw Euny coming. But that first night, I was startled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Highway Lessons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dragonfly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonfly/gifts).



> Thanks go to Kyabetsu, both for beta-reading, and for sharing a hostel room with me the week before deadline while I was vibrating. Also, acknowledgements are due to kaigou's posts on writing street kids (at http://kaigou.livejournal.com/tag/bright+lights+big+city ), and to Karen Cushman's YA novel "The Midwife's Apprentice" (which was inspired by the Wise Child books, so I was happy to be inspired back.)

All _dorans_ have one thing in common: they're at home. They have a place that is theirs, where they are as well-suited as a badger in his fur. Phrene says that it's part of what makes a _doran_ a _doran_ ; that if you know every tree and weed and bird and pebble around you, and love them for knowing them, then you can't help but be at home, and you can't help but be a _doran_. But I think it's more than that: every _doran_ one day seems to find a place that she knew and loved before she ever saw it, and knows that place will be the place she cares for most, and though a _doran_ loves every place he travels, he is never as happy or as wise as when he is home.

So the Gray _doran_ lives on an island near Dalriada, and that is her place; and the Red _doran_ lives on the cliff above the Good People's caverns, and the Green _doran_ knows all the pathways through the high moors to the circle where the May dancers rest; and the Shining _doran_ can find every cove where the roane seals swim among the isles of the north.

I knew all of this better than most because I had travelled to all those places, and more: I was the _doran_ Phrene's apprentice, and Phrene was the Wandering _doran_. We'd spend most of the year travelling among all the isles, and sometimes Brittany, spending a week at a time with other _dorans_ or visiting other places of power, or tiny villages along pathways that no-one else ever visited; and when the roads became clogged with snow for the winter we would stay with one of Phrene's _doran_ friends until the spring.

I hated it at first. The fifth or sixth night in April that we found ourselves sleeping by the side of the road, wrapped in just our woolen capes for warmth, I would fiercely covet my warm bed by my stepmother's hearth, and start to wonder just why I would want to be a _doran_ anyway, and _particularly_ why I would want to be a _doran_ like Phrene. But then, at midwinter, I flew. Phrene told me, again and again, that flying is never the answer to the question of whether you will be a _doran_ or not, but after that, with every step I took on the long road we walked, I saw ahead of me the home I had found in my flight: the airy wooden house filled with light and bright color and warm tapestries; the clear pond and the wide sunny pastures.

And then we met Euny.

Euny, the first time I saw her, was standing in the center of a crossroads, deep in an early winter twilight. She was dark and ragged and tiny, made smaller by the grayish rags she was wrapped in, with big black eyes in a pale thin face, and she looked to be no more than eight years old. She was wringing her hands pitifully where they emerged from the threadbare ends of her sleeves, and looked as entirely harmless and helpless as a half-grown kitten.

Even as helpless as she looked that night I was taken aback, though, because I hadn't seen her coming. I had been peering down the dim road, hoping that Phrene would find a place, soon, that she thought was worthy of a night's camp, and I'd seen only the shadows with the fields of stubble stretching beyond them. The next time I looked up, there was Euny, dark as a shadow herself, as if she had simply grown there, silent as a tree.

Later I was to learn that nobody ever saw Euny coming. But that night I was startled, for Phrene had been training me in a _doran_ 's way of seeing, of noticing things. So as suddenly as I saw her I stopped Gy, the donkey, beside me, and looked at Phrene for guidance. Phrene kept walking, though, and stopped only a few paces from Euny, as if she had not noticed until then.

"Hello!" she said, friendly and amused as always, as if this was a joke she shared with us all, her hands held loose at her sides. "Well met on the roadway!"

Euny cast her eyes down. "Please, lady," she said, looking even smaller. "My brother's terribly sick and we haven't anything to eat. Might you have a bit of bread or grain I could carry to him?"

Phrene's interest was sharper, then, I knew. Healing was not her particular talent (nor mine) but we did a fair bit of that work, travelling, and Phrene felt that there was always someone to help and something to learn - whether they'd asked for her healing or not, at times. "How sick?" she asked, her voice more brisk and businesslike. "I know something of the herbs that heal; perhaps I can help with more than a bit of bread and meat."

Euny's eyes flashed up at that, quick and hot, but so quick that anyone might have missed it, before she was staring at her feet again. "I don't mean to put you out, lady. Only a crust or a bit of grain--"

"Oh nonsense," said Phrene, and then I knew we wouldn't be resting early that night. "I would quite like to; you aren't putting me out in the least. Unless, of course, there isn't actually anybody sick, but I see you're more honest than that. And perhaps in the morning you can go out with my apprentice and show her the places where the best of your local herbs and roots are hidden. "

Phrene waved me into the conversation, finally, so I stepped forward too. "Hi!" I said, as cheerful as I could manage. "I'm Angharad," and I smiled at her. If we scared her away now, Phrene would just make us track her down anyway, whether there was a sick brother or not.

I don't know if it was my smiles or Phrene's no-nonsense that decided her, but finally Euny nodded sharply. With her head held high she looked an entirely different person, and everything about her was sharp. "I'll show you, then," she said. "In return for guiding you tomorrow," she said solemnly, and nodded again like a fat merchant finalizing a deal.

It turned out that there was a little brother after all; or at least a very sick little boy. Euny led us cross-country to a line of trees along a creek where some haystacks were clustered. Dug into the side of one of them, deep in the stack where the curing hay made as much warmth as a campfire, was a boy even smaller than Euny, restlessly asleep. Phrene laid one hand against his cheek and stood up. "He's burning up with fever," she said, and had us lift him out to rest on my cloak, spread on the ground, until he was cooler. He woke a little as we were moving him and tried to kick me in the shins, but Euny barked at him, "Acorn, stop it now! They aren't hurting you!"

Phrene leaned over him. "Acorn, is it?" She smiled. "The acorn grows tallest that falls farthest from the tree."

The boy grabbed her wrist and muttered something, and Euny nodded. "You can call him that."

"Good," said Phrene. "Acorn, my name is Phrene, and I'm going to try to get you better. Angharad, dear, get out the willow-bark and have Euny help you find some fuel to start a fire for tea."

Euny glanced sharply at her, but she took me back into the trees to look for kindling without another word to Phrene.

She waited until we were out of earshot to say to me, "How did she know my name?"

I shrugged. "She knows things, that's all. Phrene tends to find names as if they're just strewn about on the street. Much as we found you, come to think on it. It was lucky you happened to be there as we were passing."

Euny looked away and piled another few lengths of wood onto my arms. "It wasn't luck."

I'd been wondering, myself. Phrene claimed that a _doran_ would always know another _doran_ , or even someone with power, but I was no _doran_ yet. Besides, you were supposed to smell it, and I was pretty sure Euny's smell had more to do with living inside haystacks and dungheaps than it had to do with power. But there was something about her -- "Is Euny really your name? Sometimes the names Phrene uses aren't people's regular names."

"It's my name," Euny said, gathering some dry leaves from under a hazel bush. "But what they call me is Crow-eyes." She stood and looked straight at me for once, then, before she turned without another word and pushed back up the stream-bank toward where Phrene was.

"Crow-eyes!" I called, stumbling after her, and using my longer legs ruthlessly to catch up. She did have eyes as black and as old as a crow's, but to our people, a crow was more than just a bird; she was a wise woman, and sometimes a goddess, and she saw clearly what other people did not. "You know things too," I said. "Don't you? Or maybe sometimes things happen around you--"

"It doesn't matter," said Euny, not turning around.

"It means that maybe you could be a _doran_ ," I said. "Like Phrene. Or like I might be some day. You could know all sorts of things, and help people, and--"

" _You_ could, may be," said Euny. "I can't."

"Why not?"

"Right," she said. "I'll just walk out on everything I have, and find somebody rich and beautiful to take care of me, and learn marvelous powers, and make piles of gold and jewels, and have a big white house full of colors, and meet a handsome knight, and live forever after--"

"Well, maybe not all of that," I said, but we'd come back to where Phrene knelt over the boy, and Euny was focused all on them now.

I saw that Phrene had a nice little blaze going in our firebox already, and I could have smacked myself: why would she have needed us to gather fuel when there was a haystack right there, anyway? But Phrene was carefully feeding Euny's offering into the flame anyway, and she looked concerned as she fed Acorn some softened bread.

"I'll do what I can," she said. "But, Euny, he really needs someplace warm and dry and safe, where he can eat and drink and heal in safety. Now, he's too tired from just trying to stay alive to have any energy left for getting better."

"We could take him to the Golden _doran_ 's house," I said. "We could all go," I added carefully. "It's where we were going for the winter anyway, and she loves to help people, and to teach." The Golden _doran_ was married to an old knight and lived on a big prosperous farm with him; she was young and plump and laughed a lot, and was particularly fond of children and dogs. I had treasured memories of her singing, and of her honey-cakes.

"I think that's a good idea," said Phrene. "What do you think, Euny?"

"No," she said. "You have helped, but we don't need to go anywhere with you."

"She lives just half a day's walk down the high road," said Phrene, as if she'd heard no answer. "We could be there by morning, easily. I'm sure you've seen her and her people, if you've been here long - we're on her husband's land, after all. And she's a good friend of mine; I'd love to let her meet you."

Phrene was a _doran_ , and believed that everything had its own place in the world, but she was also very good at getting her own way. I thought that had been just subtle enough for Euny, as little subtle as it was, but Phrene had passed it to me.

This wasn't much different than the two of us working to lure an orphan calf into the stable, or a kitten out of the tree when it was too scared to come down. And I knew what worked on them, the same thing that would get me to go forward after a few weeks on the road, so I said, "She usually kills a couple of chickens when we come, and she always cooks too much. I bet there's roast bird and a huge pot of soup on the stove for us already, and there will be fresh bread this morning, and more cow's milk than the whole farm could drink--"

Euny gave me another of her sharp looks, but I was pretty sure it was to cover the fact that she was wavering, and Phrene took a turn again. "You've done everything you can, and better than many a grown woman with a house of her own; but I do not think that Acorn will live if he stays where is. I think you know that too, or you wouldn't have brought us here."

Euny stood where she was for a second. I don't think I'd have had the courage for that, but she knelt down by him for a moment. "Take him," she said shortly, and stepped away.

"And you? You're very welcome too, you know."

"I can't come," she said. "He'll do well enough with you. I have things here to take care of."

"You don't have to stay," I said. "Remember what we talked about. A _doran_ is never too scared to help anyone. And you can learn. Anyone can learn. And in the big house they'll have honey-cakes--"

"At any rate," said Phrene, "You promised to show Angharad around tomorrow. That was the deal, wasn't it?"

Euny looked up at her then, calculating. I thought for a moment that she would come, but instead she said, "Yes. I will. But I can't go with you now. Take Acorn. I will find you, later." And she stepped back out of the fire's light and was gone.

I didn't honestly think she'd come, and after we re-packed our things, fed Acorn the tea, and lifted him onto the donkey's back, I asked Phrene if there wasn't any way we could make her follow. Euny was prickly and hard to catch hold of, but I hated to think of her slowly wearing herself away in the winter, alone.

"Euny will do something of her own free will, or she won't do it at all," Phrene said. "There's no use forcing her."

Phrene said that about me, too, and yet somehow I always ended up following her anyway. But I wasn't so sure that would work on Euny. "They call her Crow-eyes, you know," I said.

"Do they!" Phrene replied, with a sudden smile. "Have patience, Angharad. All things come down the road in time."

In time, I thought.

But sure enough, before the moon had set, I turned back to see the small black figure of Euny quietly pacing us a few dozen feet behind. And then I turned again, and reached across the sleeping boy to Phrene. "Look!" I said, and she did.

Behind Euny were the three more children, each as thin and barefoot as she was. And Phrene laughed, and said, loudly enough to carry, "Well! She did have other things to take care of, indeed. Do you think there will be honey-cakes enough for all of them?"

"You well know there will be!" I answered. "And you always do know."

"Come along, Angharad," said Phrene. "Let's find our road home."


End file.
